Isengard on 18th Street: If you think the recent street construction on 18th Street NW has made for a sudden lack of shade, you’re not alone. One reader on the Adams Morgan email list wonders, “Has the destruction of every mature ginko [sic] tree on 18th from Columbia to Florida always been part of the plan?? It looks like a wasteland from Mary Reed on down, and all the trees to the north appear to be marked.” Another reader responds: “Yes the 18th Street Streetscape Construction project will replace all the trees. Because the sidewalks will all be much wider, the current tree boxes would be in the middle of the sidewalks and create many hazards. Thus all of the existing trees will be removed and new trees will be placed in new tree boxes.”

At Least No One Will Get Doored: Bicyclists and motorists aren’t the only people in D.C. arguing about lanes. A story in Friday’s Washington Post reveals an ongoing battle over swimming lanes at the Wilson Aquatic Center in Tenleytown. “Slower swimmers, mostly silver-haired retirees, largely stay on the right side. The faster swimmers and triathlete types stick to the far left,” writes Annys Shin. “But beneath the calm, chlorinated surface, there is conflict. A spat over the length of the lap lanes has roiled the waters. On one end: swimmers who want shorter lanes to accommodate more people and different activities. On the other: a loose coalition led by competitive athletes who want to keep the status quo because Wilson is the city’s only indoor pool with the 50-meter lanes they consider ideal for training.”

Making the World Unsafe for Comfort: From the Takoma email list: “I write with concern and confusion over someone's choice to take our two yellow and gray floral porch swing pillows. I am almost positive that this occurred around noon today, because I was reading in the living room and thought the creaking of the porch was the mailman…An hour later, I went to grab my mail but instead of finding mail, I noticed our pillows are missing. If anyone has seen two yellow and gray pillows with a floral design created by stitching, I would love to have them back. It's not so much about the cost of the pillows but about the sense of security someone has taken from me. Has anyone seen someone walking around with them?”

I Wouldn't Go Trick-or-Treating Around There, Either: A reader on the Mount Vernon Square email list makes an alarming observation: “Please be alert if you walk your dog around Museum Apts at 401 K St. Someone there is putting moth balls in the grass in the public right of way. Moth balls are very toxic to dogs and children. If you see someone doing this, snap a photo.”

Dog Waits in Vain, 20009

A 10-part series in which Justin Moyer, part-time musician, part-time journalist, and full-time USPS enthusiast visits a bunch of post offices in our nation's capital so you don't have to.

Location: 2300 18th St. NW
Date: 4/20/09
Time: 4:47 p.m.

18th Street is renowned for its loose women, looser men, well drinks, jumbo slices, and fine imported goods. But D.C.'s answer to Bourbon and Beale Sts. also has a post office! Is Kalorama Station as good at the porno-and-head shops amongst which it is nestled?

1. Automated Postal Center (APC)
No way. No fucking way. This place is about the size of three postage stamps, and there ain't nothing automated about it.

2. Safety Glass
Thank the risen Christ – Adams Morgan does not have safety glass. But imagine – if you will – that this tiny USPS outpost was open on weekend nights! Then, all Adams Morgan's distinguished visitors from Maryland and Virginia could get shitfaced, eat falafels, and try to mail shit. In that case, 20009 would need some safety glass. Oh shit. (Is this only funny to me right because I'm high? Be honest. Actually, I'm not high right now at all. Fuck.)

3. Prompt Service
I've seen clerk "Joe W." take his time flirting with the ladies, but yesterday he kept the line moving with a series of grand hand gestures and "Please – no bullshit" glances, much like Morgan Freeman in Lean on Me.

4. Parking
Nah.

5. Service With a Smile
(cont. from #3 above) Now that I think of it, "Joe W.'s" no-nonense demeanor is less like Morgan Freeman in Lean on Me and more like Morgan Freeman in The Dark Knight. Do you remember that scene where Christian Bale was like, "Yo, Morgan, I need the cell phone information for everyone in Gotham City so I can monitor the Joker's activities (Heath Ledger R.I.P.)" and Morgan was like, "Christian, that's a fucking violation of privacy. Aren't you aware that this is a thinly-veiled metaphor for warrantless wiretapping?" Anyway, I don't remember how the whole thing turned out (Batman wins, I guess? But he also loses and remains an existential hero? Or something?), but Morgan Freeman was really pissed in that scene, much like "Joe W." often seems pissed while manning the register at Kalorama Station.

6. Triflin' Factor
20009's close quarters could, in a less civilized part of town (ahem, Chevy Chase), lead to a lot of triflin'. However, Kalorama's clientele just doesn't have time for the bullshit. They're hustlin'. They just finished up that grant application for their non-profit with a vague mission statement but a decidedly liberal outlook and it needs to get to the Soros Foundation on time. They're shipping out a free promo of the new Jay-Z record they got for free as a "music reviewer" for the City Paper and sold on EBay and/or half.com for, like, $7 and it is a priority. They're sending money orders to loved ones in poor Latin American countries after a long week on the construction site and everybody back home needs to know that Maryland ain't givin' out drivers licenses to undocumented immigrants any more. Everybody's got their head down and is silently going about his/her business. That's the American way, and that's the way I like it.

7. Customer Comments
"Quality of service waxes and wanes," says "Jim G.," an Adams Morgan-based "consultant" who unwittingly and hilariously compared the work of 20009's employees to the celestial behavior our Earth's only Moon. "Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's terrible." Just like the tides, Jim G. Just like the tides.

Final Grade: A solid B-.

These events have highly inconvenienced luncheoning workers in the neighborhood, at least one of whom had to go to Subway instead of So's Your Mom for a sandwich.

UPDATE, 3:10 P.M.: A Pepco spokesperson says one manhole started smoking around 1:15 p.m. No power outages have been reported, and there's no word yet on the cause.

Goins was different than most of the kids Weaver tracks. "The thing that messed up every community activist in Adams Morgan is that he was off your radar. All of us internally make a list of kids who are immediately of concern and on the border....Derrell was beyond that. He was a kid that when he wanted community goods, when he came to [us], it was light, things that are goodness."

Goins received community money for art classes, and an after-school photography program. He craved a normal suburban teenager's existence. The job at the Hilton swimming pool. The time and resources to do his pen-and-ink sketches.

But pen and ink sketches aren't enough to escape the old Adams Morgan, the Adams Morgan in which the teenage rite of passage is joining the 1-7. Teenage boys divide themselves based on whether or not they're part of 1-7, affiliated loosely with 1-7 or ignore the 1-7 altogether. Goins wasn't part of the gang at all. He had no criminal history. Police didn't know him.

Still Goins, Weaver says, knew "all of the worst guys from 17th and Euclid." First cousins. Best Friends. His older brother. He was a "special kid" not just in the way he handled himself, but in the way he treated those guys. He didn't look down on them. "He never met anyone who was insignificant, who was beneath him, dirty and less than," Weaver says.

In an interview, one of Goins' good friends recalled:

"He's just like one of the smartest persons. He had a rough childhood after he lost his mother. There was only him and his brothers and sisters. He was a down-to-earth person. School came first. When he had his ups and downs, he still stayed in school. He was like that positive energy that walked in a room when nobody else had it.

It was always pressure [to join 1-7]. All his friends were there....I know it was plenty of times they were trying to convince him: 'Hey do what we do.'...He always thought about education first.

I'm angry by them just having drama in the neighborhood....I think it was mistaken identity. They must have thought it was his brother....It's a shame that it had to come like that. Why have drama inside a neighborhood when anybody can get hurt at anytime? I don't associate with them people anymore."

Goins graduated from Wilson. He had the full-time job at the Hilton. And he had his arty side. Weaver says Goins tried to keep the art stuff secret: "He didn't want a lot of people to know he had done that."

The pen and ink sketches, Weaver recalls, detailed Adams Morgan street life. He was killed in the alley between Champlain and Ontario.

Weaver says the scene at the yellow tape really disturbed him. "I was embarrassed by how everyone was acting," he says. "It defied logic. Here you had a 21-year-old kid who never had a police record. I was there 10 minutes after the shooting and everyone at the scene was like: 'I don't understand why I can't get to my car. Why can't I get into the alley way?"

Goins' legacy, Weaver says, remains an open question.

"It will be the war over Willow." Weaver says. "Will people recognize the joy of his life or will people succumb to the way that he died?"

Goins leaves behind a live-in girlfriend and an unborn daughter.

There is more to say about Goins. We will be updating the blog this weekend and earlier next week. We wrote a big story about 17th and Euclid several years ago.

Weaver has set up "The Willow Fund" to help pay for the education of Goins' unborn daughter. If you would like to contribute to "The Willow Fund" to please send your donation to P.O. Box 21009  Washington, DC 20009  — or take a check to the BB&T bank at the corner of 18th and Columbia.

It's 10:30 on Election Night and you know you are so shut out at Busboys & Poets. Well, there's plenty of room for you on the 18th Street strip! We here at City Desk are here to serve those looking for a beer and some blue-staters. (And also, these bars are close to our offices.) Here's a fairly complete rundown of what's happening:

Saki: Suck-i. Skip it.
Asylum: TV's on. So is the metal music. Don't come in if you don't have a tattoo.
Subway: Your sandwich artist is waiting with your six-inch meatball.
Bossa: TV's on, but the band's setting up. It's Mojai, "alternative funk." A manager says they're going on later than usual, about 11 p.m.
Madam's Organ: Election TVs on three floors, but you'll have to endure a cover and Old Man Brown, a blues band (well, duh). BONUS: Bill Duggan may be lurking angrily inside.
Tryst: TV's on but it's tiny. Everyone else is more interested in themselves. It's Tryst.
Diner: Ka-ching! People are cashing in their 10 percent off cards gleaned today at area precincts. TV's on, but so is the glam rock. It'll probably be Madonna or the Ramones by the time you get there.
GranDCentral: A good spot to see returns. TV's on Brokaw and turned up loud, $3 domestics all night.
Rumba: Rum-bad. Skip it.
Color Me Mine: Closed. Sorry, Cherkis. You'll have to paint pottery another night.
Toledo Lounge: My go to. Switching between the Caps game and election results, will switch over to all-election after hockey, in true Toledo style. Also, it's "Ladies Night." (Not really, the bartender was being ironic.)

Black Squirrel: Adams Morgan's Busboys & Poets. It's packed, mostly with law students from American U. Party organizers Alex Bell and Kerstin Mikalbrown are holding court. They came in on a slow Saturday to watch football and decided this new A-Mo hotspot would be just the ticket for their ticket.
Ventnor Sports Bar: Election upstairs and down below.
Angles: Party faithful skewing the demo. Let's say they are bar-goers of a certain age.
Pharmacy Bar: Smoke much? Go here.
Tom-Tom: TV's on, no fights yet. The frat boys are still doing funnels at home.
Heaven & Hell: Hell, who cares? Skip it.
Columbia Station: Hot Jazz Tuesday Night
Nolan's: Boy, didn't take long for this lame bar to go under, did it?
Bourbon: Come on in, the beer's warm. Just kidding. $3 drafts and homemade punch, "Place your new world order at the bar." I have to say this: Barf.
Prince Cafe: Either finally closed for good or in its death throes. Poor lonely hookahs.
Felix: First the election, then the dancing. But no, and we mean it, tennis shoes. Seriously.
Eighteenth & Red: Eighteenth & Dead. Skip it.
Millie & Al's: Eight TVs all tuned in, $3 Miller Lites, 1/2-price pizza (eat it quick, that way you won't taste it much). Good crowd, mostly a sausage-fest, so good for sausage lovers.
Bukom Cafe: What election, mon?
The Reef: Election on the plasma on the main level, pretension as per usual throughout
True Story Tavern: NKOTB. A fine place to watch returns. Specials include $3 Bud Lights, $3 "Obamabombs" (kamikaze shot with blue curacao), $3 McCain Slamas (Alabama slammers), and $3 draft and rail drinks. Good crowd, friendly but not too. I question the wisdom of $3 Alabama slammers, but it's early yet.

So, to recap, your best bets: GranDCentral, Toledo Lounge, Black Squirrel (if you want to get it on with American U law students), Ventnor, Bourbon, Millie & Al's, True Story. Don't say we didn't warn you.

(Excellent photograph by Darrow Montgomery)

So stay home, is what you might say. And, pretty much, that's what I do, or I grab a bagel and eat it in a park. But sometimes I actually do want someone else to make me a hot breakfast—not a "brunch" mind you, but a breakfast. Good luck getting that in my neighborhood. In Adams Morgan, my go-to is The Diner. But on Sunday, you can't even pull off the counter trick. Everyone and their cousin from Maryland and the cousin's four kids and their family dog are congregating outside. And they're dressed up. And it's the fucking Diner, people. This scene repeats itself all over 18th Street. What I'm saying is this: When there's a line at Asylum for food and the people in line look like they just spilled out of Chloe, you know something's wrong. And what is wrong is brunch culture in D.C. It's phony, it's stupid, it sucks.

Allow me to save you the time: The Oaxacan native immigrated to the United States in 1965, with the grand idea that he would enroll at the Air Force Academy and become a fighter pilot. That dream proved elusive for a Mexican with limited connections. Instead, Montesinos started working as a waiter at the now-shuttered A.V. Ristorante Italiano in 1970 while studying business and economics at Salisbury University on the Eastern Shore. Montesinos considered the late Augusto Vasaio, who founded A.V. in 1949, his mentor. “To me, AV. was one of the most important people in my life,” he says.

It was at A.V. that Montesinos realized the culinary connections between his native country and Italy. (Got another hour to spare? Ask Montesinos about the history of tomatoes.) It was then that Montesinos also realized he wanted a place of his own. “Every homework that I had [in college], I always wrote about the restaurant that I had in my mind,” Montesinos remembers.

His homework became reality in 1978, when Montesinos opened Enriqueta's on M Street NW in Georgetown. It was an immediate hit in a town that had choked down one too many enchiladas smothered in Velveeta. “Put aside any Tex-Mex preconceptions. Enriqueta's is an authentic Mexican restaurant with a menu listing a variety of styles of cooking, tastes and textures, only a few of them hot,” Phyllis Richman wrote in her 1979 Washington Post Dining Guide. “Enriqueta's will teach you something you are glad to know about Mexican food.”

Two years later, in 1980, Montesinos opened Mixtec, then only a grocery store designed to help the budding restaurateur import much-needed ingredients from Mexico. The grocery morphed into a taqueria in 1982, which became a problem when Montesinos decided to open a second Enriqueta’s just a few doors down on Columbia Road. Mixtec and Enriqueta’s ended up competing against each other for D.C.’s limited Mexican dining dollar, since locals apparently couldn’t distinguish between a taqueria and the more fully developed menu at Enriqueta’s. In the mid-1980s, Montesinos—and here’s the important part, finally—transformed the second Enriqueta’s into Trattoria Garibaldi, a short-lived Italian spot.

Montesinos, in other words, is not just adding Italian food to his take-out operation for the hell of it. He has experience with the cuisine, has affection for it, and even feels a connection between his mother’s cooking back in Oaxaca and the stuff turned out in rustic Italian kitchens.

The line of pizzas and pastas at the new take-out shop will be Montesinos’ own attempt to keep the spirit of A.V. alive—both the restaurant and his old friend. Montesinos has even hired Virginia Williams, a cook at A.V. for 40 years, to make his pies and pastas, which will, of course, include that mouthwatering white pizza that you just had to order every time you stepped foot into A.V.’s. But Montesinos has also developed a few of his own pies, which could make you forget all about A.V.’s most famous round. Personally, I’m looking forward to a pair of Montesinos’ creations: one pie with tomatillos and roasted pork and another with Oaxacan mole.

Montesinos says he might also sell meatloaf and some traditional sandwiches. It may sound like yet another oddball addition to his Mexican operation, but it all makes sense to Montesinos, a man with his feet planted in three distinct cultures: his native Mexico, his adapted America, and the Southern Italy of his old mentor. “Eventually, we’ll do the three cuisines,” Montesinos promises, “the Mexican, the American, and the Italian concept.”